ABS-CBN

"Social Studio has helped us set a new industry standard for how brands and brand influencers should mutually benefit when engaging audiences."

Donald Lim,Chief Digital Officer

ABS-CBN Delivers New Business Model for Social Media with Salesforce Marketing Cloud

For Donald Lim, Chief Digital Officer at ABS-CBN, the leading media and entertainment company in the Philippines, Salesforce Social studio is more than a tool for monitoring social media – it’s the key to opening up new business opportunities for the company.

“Social Studio has helped us become a leader in social media and set a new industry standard for how brands and brand influencers should mutually benefit when engaging audiences.”

-- Donald Lim | Chief Digital Officer | ABS-CBN

Now three years into his current role, Mr. Lim pioneered the Company’s social media programme to extend the reach of its advertising.

Pushing into social media was a significant step for media giant ABS-CBN. And while they were aware of the need for social media, finding the right tools and understanding how best to handle the data posed significant challenges.

Tooling up for social

Social media is widely regarded as a low-cost marketing channel. However, building genuine engagement at scale requires significant investment in specialist tools and teams to manage large audiences, mine associated data, and report progress.

Social Studio is a key enabler. Its ability to monitor and analyse social media accounts keeps ABS-CBN in tune with its brands, personalities, and topics that are engaging the web-using public.

These functions support a range of powerful, monetisable social media assets, most notably Stellar - ABS-CBN’s celebrity social media marketing agency designed to help brands amplify their online presence and engage their target audiences through celebrity online personas. The first agency of its kind in the country, Stellar manages almost 300 artists, including some of the most followed celebrities in the Philippines.

Filipinos are enthusiastic users of social media, and engagement rates are extremely high. This puts social influencers, celebrities specifically, in a strong position to drive brand awareness and equity.

Talent score

Stellar looks at celebrities from different angles to align the artist’s persona to the strategic marketing needs of brands. Pricing for each social media campaign is determined by a ‘Navi Score’ in Social Studio – an algorithm that factors in followers, engagement, and existing involvement with a particular brand.

It’s new territory for social media, moving beyond arbitrary price setting for celebrity endorsement to an auditable pricing framework based on real measures. Functioning as a celebrity ratecard, Navi Scores ensure advertisers can compare the costs of different celebrities and their likely impact according to campaign measures such as reach and influence. Post campaign reporting confirms actual results and shows what the target audience thought and how they reacted online.

Some A-list celebrities were perplexed to record a Navi Score similar to young, so-called non-star talent. However, when they realised social media could turn unconventional stars into serious influencers, they embraced the system. The insight also spurred celebrities to think more deeply about their posts, knowing that audience reactions materially influence celebrity value.

"Stellar and Social Studio have made our talent more aware about what they post. Their social media maturity has increased – they make sure they have something worthwhile to say before they post," said Mr Lim.

One tool to rule them all

A business of ABS-CBN’s size and diversity will often use more than one social toolset to cover requirements that fall beyond the scope of one solution. However, at ABS-CBN, Social Studio is the primary social tool, largely for its accuracy.

“Social Studio delivers comprehensive surveying at a high level of accuracy – we use it for working out prices, for example. This accuracy, and our trust in Salesforce, helped us choose Social Studio as our primary tool," said Mr Lim.